


Sky of fireworks

by RucyL



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Companions are just mentioned, F/F, F/M, Post Darillium, Post-Episode: 2015 Xmas The Husbands of River Song, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22635340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RucyL/pseuds/RucyL
Summary: The Doctor carefully steps into her wife's timeline again, trying not to rewrite time too much.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 14
Kudos: 154





	1. Remember who's here

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a long time, but I never got to finish it so I thought if people liked it, that might motivate me to write it until the end.
> 
> The chapter names are lyrics from the English version of "Sky", by Goose House, the song that inspired this fic.

It was wrong.

Being alone was terribly and absolutely wrong.

She had never been alone before. Well, she, the Doctor had been alone before so many times, too many times. But not her. Not like this. 

This Doctor had had Yaz, Ryan and Graham since the beginning, since the very first moment she —quite literally— fell to Earth. Sweet Yaz, funny Ryan, caring Graham. They were her gang, her fam. Her team TARDIS. All this time, she had kept running after them, hurrying to show them the universe before it was too late.

Not anymore. They were all gone. It was too late.

And she was alone again, for the first time.

At least she had the TARDIS. The one who never left. Or maybe the one she never left? Anyway, no matter how loyal the machine was, she couldn’t possibly answer the comments the Doctor found herself saying out loud, laugh at the stupid funny faces she kept making, ask for more time and space together. It reached the point when she couldn’t stand it. The Time Lady made the TARDIS sound louder and louder because she began to hate every second of silence.

She had met so many people! Fantastic, brilliant, important people. And yet, who could she ask for company when she was feeling lonely? There had to be someone in all those years. There had to. The Doctor started to make a list in her mind. 

It had to be someone who knew about regeneration. The list halved.

Someone who she could reach.

Someone who didn’t think she was dead.

Someone who _wasn’t_ dead. 

The list kept shrinking.

Of course, some of those conditions weren’t always applicable if she were to go back on her friends’ past timelines, but that would be extremely complicated. Someone who she could trust to not reveal to her past self that she was going to be a woman? Not only a woman, but a smart and brilliant woman!

“A brilliant woman.”

The Doctor scrunched her nose. She had heard that before. When had that been? Too many years, too many people. She browsed through her memories trying to find the correct one. There was a sweet smell, and a hint of colour red. 

“I met a brilliant woman tonight.”

Oh, she would never forget that voice. Not after all the two of them had done together, all the times they had run together… She closed her eyes as she began to remember all the details, so that her companion could be with her once more. 

With immense care, the Doctor silently mouthed “Hello, sweetie.”

________________________________________

It had been River. On the last night of her first month at Stormcage, the Doctor had made the TARDIS materialize silently in her cell. The Ponds slept in their room, but the Time Lord had no plans of resting. As soon as he landed, he jumped out of the machine, ready to free Doctor Song from her confinement and take her anywhere in time and space. That had been the idea, at least. There was a tiny detail he hadn’t planned: His wife was nowhere to be seen.

The Doctor was scanning his surroundings with the sonic screwdriver when a bright flash blinded him. When he opened his eyes again, River was standing right in front of him.

“Hello, sweetie.”

The Doctor smiled, even if he was a bit annoyed. He took a look at River’s outfit, trying to figure out where she came from. She was wearing a bright red skirt that reached below her knees and a black turtle neck jumper. He noticed she was wearing make up and she had done something to her hair, but he couldn’t point out what. It really suited her, though, because she was even more stunning than always.

“I see I’m late for the party.”

“Quite a few centuries late. Happy New Year 1957!”

“And how exactly did you get there? ‘Cause that just now wasn’t the TARDIS.” He waved the sonic in her general direction.

River smiled, noticeably amused. She reached inside her pockets (a skirt with pockets, that was _cool_ ), and pulled out a vortex manipulator.

“A guard lost this yesterday.” she said. Her voice implied some extra meaning to the word ‘lost’, but the Doctor didn’t ask. Sometimes it was better not to know. “He’s new, so I think I’ll have a week before he reports the disappearance.”

“You’re a box full of surprises, Doctor Song.”

“Yeah, you seem to have a thing for those.”

“Yes, I do,” he agreed, getting closer to her. “So, where’s the party?”

“It was London, about half an hour before 1957, but honey, you’re not going this time.”

“Of course I’m going! I’ve got a time machine, I can’t be late for a party.”

“No, but you weren’t there, so you can’t go.”

“But that’s… Why wouldn’t I go? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because I’m telling you not to.” River pressed a finger against the Doctor’s chest. He could catch the smell of her sweet perfume. “So fly away in that surprise box of yours and pick me up tomorrow night.”

The Doctor understood her point, but still walked inside the TARDIS reluctantly.

“Even if I wasn’t there, time can be rewritten.”

River pulled her diary out of another pocket. The Doctor began to suspect those pockets were bigger on the inside. Had she stolen the clothes from the TARDIS? She read out loud. “Rule no. 45: Never _ever_ rewrite time for a party.”

“I can’t wait to see why I added that rule.”

“What a night that was. Anyways, you, box. And stay away from 1957’s New Years Eve. I met a brilliant woman tonight, and I don’t want you messing up with that.”

“...fine. But tomorrow you wait for me and don’t go, just, wandering off through history.” The Doctor kept moving his hands around even after finishing speaking. He was upset.

“Don't worry. I’ll be all yours, my love.”

________________________________________

And so, after a few quick trips, the Doctor had reappeared the next night, as he had promised, and River had been ther, as she had promised. The couple had visited Paris in the 19th century and had some crepes by the Seine. But her choice of words had kept nagging him for years and years. It was just a side remark, a comment, but ‘brilliant’. That word was one that his previous regeneration had used frequently, but she used it a lot now too. And she was a woman.

Maybe she could be that brilliant woman. Maybe she could travel back and meet River again. It was a wonderful thought, but it was risky. What if she had not meant her? She’d be rewriting the party, and she couldn’t have that, now that she knew, now that she remembered why rule 45 existed. Ah, what a night that was…

Still, she changed the rules all the time. And what were her other options? Just keep traveling alone for years—or even decades—until she found someone who would want to travel with her? No. Not that again. She had to go to River. 

'Yes', she decided. She—He had been right all those years ago, when they had met for the first time.

River was worth rewriting time.


	2. I won't ever let you be lost again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever it takes to find River, just like the old times.

The time was: Half an hour to midnight, 31st December 1956. 

The place was: London, UK, Earth. 

And the noise was: _Definitely_ not the sound of 18 of the same time-space machine landing simultaneously all over the city, as they have all been put in silent mode. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures, the Doctor had concluded.

She marked yet another X on the map she had both bought 8 hours ago and was buying right that instant. It was scribbled all around the edges, detailing her marvelous plan:

_Step 1) Find River_

_Step 2) Get to stay with River_

_Step 3) Enjoy_

She took a good look at the markings, and, after making sure she had it memorized, retrieved the photo from the console and exited the ship.

There should have been an easier way to search, but if there was, the Doctor didn’t think of it. Even if the sonic screwdriver he had used at the time had retained the coordinates of the teleport by some fluke, all the data was gone now. Another option could have been tracking the vortex manipulator’s artron energy with the sonic, except the TARDIS’ landing flooded the whole place with it, making it impossible to detect. So the hard, archaic way it was.

Eighteen blonde women stepped out of their respective blue boxes wearing elegant navy suit and grey sport coats. The Doctor(s) spent twenty minutes asking anyone she(they) crossed paths with if they had seen the woman in the photo.

Seventeen of those women returned empty handed to their respective TARDISes and took off simultaneously at 23:50. But the remaining one…

“You have seen her?” The Doctor felt like someone had set fireworks inside her chest.

“Yeah, a couple streets down there.” A young girl with a bulky hairdo pointed to some buildings in the distance. “She was heading the other way, so you must have just missed her turning the corner.” Her male partner nodded, although the Doctor was sure he hadn’t seen a thing.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” 

She smiled to the couple and began to run towards the place the girl had pointed. She held the photo tightly to her chest while sprinting down the street. She was going to see River. She was going to see River!

After a few minutes, the Doctor finally spotted the woman in the red skirt walking down a well light street with her hands full. Step 1, accomplished!

The Doctor’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was there! River, his—not, her wife was actually there! She resisted the temptation of just running up to her and yelling “Surprise!!”. To maintain the timeline in place, River couldn’t know that she was the Doctor. Well, to maintain the timeline in place as much as she could when possibly changing her dead wife’s past by time traveling. Things were never that easy around the couple.

She hid the photo on one of her many pockets and ran through a back street, taking a shortcut and passing River. When the woman turned at the corner, they, very literally, ran into each other.

The result was a big crash. A clumsy, out of balance mess that only ended when River held the Doctor by the lapels of her coat, letting all the things she had been carrying fall on the floor. It was then when started one of the most awkward stare contests in recorded history. Later, the Doctor wouldn’t be able to recall how much time she was lost into those young blue eyes, ignoring the tango-like stance she was being held in, before River swiftly lifted her back to her feet.

“Hi! I’m—uh, I’m really sorry.” The Doctor regained her balance and put her clothes back in place with hasty gestures. She was almost certain she could cover up the shortness of breath and the loss of words as consequences of running. “I didn’t really look where I was going and I—I’ll help you with this!”

The Doctor crouched and started collecting mechanic parts and long cables. Judging by the material, her wife was either going to make some type of laser fireworks from scratch or trying to blow up the Parliament. Again. She really hoped for fireworks.

River let out an exasperated sigh and kneeled beside her. “It’s okay,” she lied. She picked the pieces one by one, carefully checking nothing was broken. The Doctor took a quick look at her. She was astonishing. The clothes were indeed from the TARDIS’ wardrobe, the Doctor recognized them now that she had to go through the women section way more often. Her lips were tinted an intense red, impact red, matching her heels, skirt and scarf. And the hair. The hair! She had managed to style it like a model of the time but maintaining the curls. The Doctor discovered with joy that she absolutely adored the curls. The white-haired Scotsman had been most interested in those turquoise pools that were her eyes, and he had missed out a lot, she decided with glee.

River was staring back at her. Oops. The Doctor quickly directed her attention back to the few remaining things on the floor.

“There!” she carefully stood up with her hands full, only to discover she had missed part of a cable, that was still hanging down to the floor. River picked up the other end and rose swiftly next to her. The cable hanged between them, joining, tying, marrying. It was probably charged, the Doctor thought, with all the tension in the air. She needed to solve that. Quick.

“You’re taller than me!” the Doctor blurted out. Never been good at small talk. Didn't know what she had been hoping for.

“Not really. It’s the heels. Now, can I please have my pieces back?”

“Uh, sure. ‘course. But I think the core circuit has broken.” It hadn’t. But this was her only chance. She scrunched her nose apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

“What? That took me hours to _find_!” Again, “ _find_ ” didn’t signify “find”. The actual meaning was closer to “borrow without permission”.

“It’s okay! It’s fine, you don’t need it. If you reroute the current by the inside surface of the conductor, it’ll work perfectly. Probably. Assuming it’s a firework. Is it a firework?”

It was now River's turn to study her, as she seemed to be only realizing at that moment that even if the Doctor clothes fitted the era, they didn't fit the norm.

"It is fireworks, yes," she replied, her tone vaguely amused. "But who are _you_?"

The Doctor smiled. Step 2, accomplished.


	3. With just one scoop of sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is lead around.

“But who are you?”

The Doctor, happy to oblige, opened her mouth to answer. That was a mistake, as her brains hadn’t yet produced a suitable string of words to replace the extraordinarily long and involved truth.

A name, Doctor, think.

No psychic.

Empty pockets.

Don’t panic.

A human, female name. It couldn’t be so difficult to choose one.

Why had she never thought of a female name?!?

Oh, wait. She had.

“Ruth!” she exclaimed, with a bit too much enthusiasm. 

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s my name. Ruth. Ruth Smith.”

It was a rather felicitous name, she thought. Ruth meant “friend, companion” and Smith, in a broad sense, meant “maker”. She had therefore just named herself “The one that makes friends”. It suited her. 

“Nice to meet you, Ruth. I’m Doctor River Song.”

And the Doctor wanted to shout “Yes, I know who you are!”. A polite smile covered that up while the archaeologist continued speaking.

“I’ll shake your hand—or perform whatever other greeting you prefer—once we’ve sorted this out, if you don’t mind.” While the Doctor decided which was her preferred greeting— “Hello sweetie” won by far—, River checked the street behind her with a nonchalant turn of head. And the Doctor knew. She recognized, remembered, knew that gesture. River was working on a countdown. Better hurry, then.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine like this. Perfectly fine.” The Doctor tilted her body forwards, playfully balancing on her toes. “So, where to next, Doctor Song?” Countdown ticking. Probably she wanted to time the explosion to the New Year. Fifteen minutes, twenty-six seconds left then.

“You’re really gonna stick with me, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Got to fix my mistake. And the laser firework,” she asserted, sounding a bit more impatient than she meant to. 

River turned and leaded the way, with the Doctor following closely, as they were still holding opposite ends of the principal cable. 

“Why a laser firework, though?” Second try at small talk, hopefully it would be less fruitless, that is to say, fully fruitful. She mentally said bye to the few remaining chances of camouflaging as a 20th century human being. That’s what she got for mentioning laser fireworks. But then she just really wanted to spend quality time with River. Talk, laugh, kiss, touch. 

Okay, maybe not touch, she pondered, as this regeneration was even more anti-touch than the Scotsman. But kissing was touching. Well, River was allowed to touch. Yes, she always was. Right, but back to the talking. “I mean, laser fireworks are gorgeous, love laser fireworks, but they take a ridiculous amount of power to launch up. And this is 1957. 56. Won’t it stand out a bit too much?”

“If you’re going to detain me for firing it in this age, I’ve got bad news for you, girl.”

“Oi, I’m not. I’m not a Time Agent,” the Doctor replied, slightly offended. He had signed up for the Time Agency once. By accident. Both River and Vastra wouldn’t stop laughing at him when they heard.

“That’s what all Time Agents say.” Touché.

“I’m just a regular… part-time mechanic, part-time traveler.” Regular. Now there was a word she didn’t use often to describe herself.

“Part- _time traveler_?”

“Yes,” she insisted, rising her eyebrows. River snorted.

“You think you’re so funny.” She turned her head around, but her wife had seen it. Thanks to that gorgeous lipstick, the reddest and most suiting ever in the whole wide universe. River Song was grinning, so the Doctor was winning. Winning her game against time and destiny and death.

“ _I am_ so funny, thank you very much.” The Doctor moved some hair out of her face by swinging her head, exhibiting too a wide smile.

They were silent for a moment. The Doctor could hear the city murmurs, hundreds, thousands, millions of people together celebrating the turning of time. She gazed up to the sky, to find it hidden behind a carpet of clouds. It threatened with rain, but it would not deliver. However, the threat by itself had been enough make most of the people take cover in the insides of the vast city. A city so huge when she was alone, so little now she was with River.

“How did you know? That it was a laser firework.”

Result! A conversation not started by her!

“Told you, I’m a part-time mechanic,” she repeated. Rived eyed her over the shoulder and her wife could read the disbelief written all over her face.

“I’m not believing that,” River may or may not had said. The Doctor wasn’t really sure it had been out loud, but she replied anyway. 

“Come on, it’s the truth. Really. And—I believed you when you said you were a Doctor, Doctor Song. So you should believe me when I say I saw your things and thought ‘Ah, that looks an awful lot like a triphasic syncrodetonator. Hope this person doesn’t want to blow up the Parliament’.”

“Ah… Blowing up the Parliament, that’s nostalgic.” She was smiling without hiding this time. But it wasn’t the usual smile she’d use. Snarky, mischievous, a smile that meant something else. The smile that meant ‘Come along, we’ll break some laws, it’ll be _interesting_.’ The smile that promised ‘interesting’ was a cover up for another, more exciting word.

The Doctor frowned. Why wasn’t River smiling like that. Why wasn’t she happily planning how she’d tease that to the next past Doctor she met. Why was she leaving him behind. Had they argued recently, from her point of view? The Doctor had trouble recalling the proper order of events.

Ah, she realized. No wonder she was upset. River didn’t know. She had no way to know his husband wasn’t coming, because she hadn’t yet decided to tell him not to come. So by her standards, he was just being ridiculously and stupidly late, planning a show of an entrance while she was bored and stranded. The firework was probably revenge for being unpunctual. Chinny would hate a laser firework being launched without him. Luckily, she didn’t ever tell him.

Wait, stranded? River wasn’t—

The poor Timelord might or might not had yelped when the cable pulled her back, depending on who you asked. She had been, for second time that evening, awfully close to falling to the ground when her wife stopped dead in her tracks before a three-story building.

“Here we are!” River Song announced cheerfully. Way too cheerfully for a building that looked like it was due to be demolished months before. Her wife had a general grasp of the construction laws of, well, basically everywhere, and thus knew it was not entirely safe for the walls to bend in that way. River didn’t seem to care, even though she had definitely noticed, and determinedly climbed the rusty emergency stairs on the outside of the construction. The Doctor rushed after her. Up, up, up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One would think with all this quarantine thing going on, there should be time to write, but no, on the contrary. Idk when the claws of university exams will set me free again, but I hope that in the mean time you have enjoyed this new chapter.


End file.
